Comet lander Philae detected organic compounds on the surface, just before shutting down

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Once it became clear that Philae, the ESA probe that landed on comet 67P/C-G had wound up in the wrong spot, scientists raced to finish their data gathering before the probe shut down forever. That frantic scramble has apparently paid off: Initial analysis of the data returned by Philae shows that there are organic molecules on the surface of the comet. We don’t know exactly how life began on Earth (or other planets), but most scientists believe that the presence of organic compounds was probably the first step. In short, these findings from Philae suggest that life on Earth was kickstarted by the bombardment of comets carrying these organic compounds.

What’s an organic compound?

Methane – four hydrogen atoms connected to a single carbon atom – is one of the simplest organic compounds

An organic compound is any compound that contains a carbon chain or backbone. They’re typically more complex than inorganic molecules, and they’re often found in living creatures — but there also are a large number of organic compounds that have nothing to do with living things.

If you’re thinking this explanation doesn’t actually clarify much, you see the dilemma clearly. There are a huge range of organic compounds depending partly on what kind of carbon chains you define as “organic” and how simple or complicated you want to make the inorganic/organic distinction. The atmosphere on 67P is extremely thin, so it’s possible that what Philae detected was the result of outgassing — and that means the compounds the probe picked up might tell us something about the interior of the comet.

As hard as ice

The ESA did report on an unexpected snag related to Philae’s surface sensor, the Multi-Purpose Sensors for Surface and Subsurface Science (MUPUS for short). One of the tools in MUPUS’ toolbox was a 1.5m harpoon designed to fire directly into the comet’s surface and extract samples. The probe fired correctly but appears to have hardly sunk any distance into the comet itself.

That’s not necessarily unheard of — ice can be incredibly strong — but the ESA team thought the harpoon was powerful enough to sink the entire way into the surface. We know the hammer deployed properly, but current thinking is that it sank into a layer of 10-20cm frozen dust and was only able to break a few millimeters into the comet’s surface. That suggests the surface is roughly as hard as sandstone, so scientists intend to investigate what kind of dust/ice mixture could produce that kind of surface layer.

Philae’s bounce across comet 67P, which ultimately left the lander in shadow, and thus unable to produce any electricity from its solar panels.

Unfortunately, it looks as if a soil sample wasn’t delivered to the lander, but the impact analysis and dust temperatures still tell us something about the surface of the comet. The hope right now is that Philae may reactivate as the comet draws closer to the sun and heats up again. If it can, it would be able to monitor the changes as the comet is heated by the sun and begins to melt again. Discussion on this point is mixed, with some saying that the comet might recover enough power while others argue that temperatures on 67P will fall too low to allow the batteries to regenerate, even if the comet heats up again.

While Philae has already returned a ton of data, it will now be down to the ESA and the international community of astronomers and scientists to analyze that data and turn it into science, so that we gain a new understanding about the structure of comets and how they form. In the early days of the Solar System (and trillions of other solar systems throughout the universe), comets may have played a key role in distributing the organic molecules that are necessary for the genesis of life — or, taken to the next level, that comets and asteroids actually harbor simple life itself, and have thus distributed life to much of the universe, in a process known as panspermia.

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